One of the early developers working on The Sims 4 shares dissatisfaction with initial project – and early Titanopolis World screens.
One of The Sims 4 developers who used to work on the game from its very early days shared a few secrets about how the production initially went down. Sharing dissapointment in early leadership of the project and busting some urban Sims myths. The Sims 4’s initial vision of Multiplayer during its Olympus era wasn’t cancelled because SimCity 2013 was flopping. It was cancelled and rebuilt as a new project in 2013 “because it was bad”.
This all lead to the reveal of Titanopolis, an urban and more dense packed City than you would’ve seen in the current version of the game. This was later replaced with the idea of a New Orleans themed world, which later came to become Willow Creek.
Interesting fact: The Sims 4 pre-production started all the way back in late 2009. Meaning that the Olympus and Preproduction dabbling took 3 years to complete, until it was all reverted back in 2013 and switched to a single player experience.
This all looks very similar to what we’re experiencing now with constant switches of EA’s focus on The Sims Project Rene being the main game sucesssor, turning it into a mobile exclusive project and giving attention to Project X (allegedly).
It all started when a Reddit user u/JPOINT_V posted a throwback photo of The Sims 4 Map View from 2014. The typical throwback photo that gets posted every now and then on social media!
This screenshotted post of a map preview screen captured on Facebook, and then posted on Reddit, captured the attention of user u/vertexnormal, or Michael Long. Who used to work on The Sims 4 as a 3D Modeler from pre-production days in 2010 up until 2012. He also worked on The Sims 1 Expansions and was a lead Environment Artist for The Sims 2 and The Sims 3.
Find everything he shared about his time working on The Sims 4 in pre-production era and what it was like working for The Sims 2 and The Sims 3:
Q&A With The Sims 4 Pre-Production Developer
Vertexnormal: I remember when it looked like this..
User: Huhhhhhhhhh i need some more infooo
Vertexnormal: Before we settled on some weird New Orleans vibe the centerpoint of TS4 was supposed to be a giant city called Titanopolis. Nobody but me has seen that image in probably 15 years.
I hated the visual direction the game went, especially the art direction, so I quit.
User: Am i being trolled? This was supposed to be sims 4 or are ya kidding meee? I have trust issues
Vertexnormal: No, mind you this was really early in production it’s not meant to be what it was supposed to end up looking like. We were trying to find a visual style. I’m not credited on TS4, but I was on the TS1 expansion team and lead environment artist on TS2 and TS3.
User: You should do an AMA or make your own post with these images, it is so interesting!!
Vertexnormal: I am still kinda angry/hurt about it, to the point I can’t talk about it without calling out certain people. I don’t want to do that, it’s just not who I am.
Question: why did they go to the pixar cartoony style direction? what about the decision regarding clay hair? did they really think the players would think the graphics were an evolution from 3?
Vertexnormal: We called it helmet hair, it was actually based off an illustrator named Leyendecker from the 50’s. The original prototypes looked great, but I don’t think it held up when they tried to scale it up and make CAS. CAS was always really hard to do well and not have generic looking characters.
Statement: They had to rebuilt most of TS4 from the scraps of Project Olympus in less than a year because of how monumentally Sim City’s online game flopped the year before TS4 was supposed to drop.
Vertexnormal: Early TS4 pre-production was horrible, they didn’t have to rebuild because SC2013, they had to rebuild because it was bad.
I was the lead environment artist during early pre production. Originally it was just me and an animator. The art direction that followed was so bad/non-existent that I literally quit my job and only stayed because they offered me a spot on The Sims: Medieval. I love so many people at Maxis like family, but some of the people they brought in literally ruined the franchise.
Question: what😭what year did its development start? is the whole Olympus thing real? any random curiosities? you have to spill more tea
Vertexnormal: I think late 2009? I can’t remember. Actually looking at the time stamps on the images I have it started in maybe July or 2009.
Statement: it’s crazy that we’re stuck at a generation that started being developed in 2009 and with this Project X sh*t EA still doesn’t want to completely move on to a brand new foundation oh god
Vertexnormal: On Sims 4 one of the limiting factors was the desire to re-use animations from The Sims 3. The largest part of the budget went towards animating the sims and saving/reusing animation was seen as a necessity. I wasn’t privy to the early TS3 production, but I’m guessing it was the same thing.
Statement: Sims 3 was near seamless transitioning from household to full neighborhood.
Then they split it up Sims 2 style again and told us it was better that way. And made it look worse than Sims 1 Neighborhood.
Vertexnormal: I made much of The Sims 2 neighborhood art, someone else did the early work on it but I was responsible for it on the expansion packs. I’m proud of how it ended up considering the limitations. TS3 was really cool.
Statement: Sims 2 was a huge part of my childhood, and so was your art!
Vertexnormal: Thank you! It was special to work on, the fact that people loved it just makes it even better.
Statement: The Art and the Music in 2 were series defining. Lemon Jelly and Sim Heartbeat still hit my Playlist at random.
Vertexnormal: We had the guy from Oingo Boingo in the office all the time, you might know him as Danny Elfman… he went on to be really famous for working with Tim Burton and a bunch of other movie stuff.
Oh sh*t ! I’m actually wrong. It was Mark Mothersbaugh who did the TS2 music, Danny Elfman did visit us several times. I always assumed it was him. Anthony Daniels came in couple times as well, I don’t know why. Elfman might have been in because The Simpsons was being developed and he knew our sound guys.
Question: was Sims 2 style supposed to be cartoony or were y’all aiming for a realistic look and was it like that just bc of technical limitations?
also why do you personally think the tone and vibe was never like that generation again? it seemed like they were going for a soap opera ish story
Vertexnormal: The Sims 2 was just an evolution of The Sims 1, same lead character artist. It was cartoony because we added Create A Sim that allowed for editing sims and the technology and techniques at the time were pretty limited. It was also just the art style and direction. EDIT: In general it because more cartoony because we went full 3D and texture memory was our biggest graphical constraint.
The Sims 1 was meant, or ended up, being a critique on consumer culture. It was pretty silly, but the idea of buying a bigger TV so you would be happier was kindof the point/joke. The Sims 2 lost that critique and became more about enabling people to tell the stories they wanted to tell, and people wanted/liked strange and funny stuff.
I don’t think the Sims 3 really had any strong identity, the weight of the franchise just meant we all wanted to iterate on 2 and make something bigger and better.
By the time Sims 4 rolled around I think they lost the plot entirely and in some ways it was driven by it needing to make money. Mind you the people working on it love the franchise and the players, it’s more of the vibe coming from new management and EA.
What are your opinions on the early pre-production period of The Sims 4? Let us know about the new Titanopolis images in the comments below and stay tuned for the latest Sims insider news and updates on Sims Community!
